Ambition drives her. Danger thrills her. But magic always has a price.
Twenty years have passed since the Darkmage was destroyed and the war between mages ended. For Lira Astor, the single living heir to the Darkmage, escaping her name is impossible. People still fear what is long dead, and they see in her the rise of another dangerous mage with deadly ambition. Desperate to claw her way free of her grandfatherâs shadow, to make her own name amongst the world of mages, Lira is willing to do whatever it takes. Even if that means joining the secretive rebel group looking to restore his vision.
Survival is a lesson Lira learned early and often, yet when she is abducted and held prisoner in a deadly game of cat and mouse, she finds herself facing a nemesis she may be no match for. Forced to band together with unlikely allies who challenge everything she believes about what it means to be a mage, she will have to rely on every bit of ruthlessness she possesses.
Because the war may only just be beginningâŚ
âŚand Lira Astor intends to come out on top.
Ambition drives her. Danger thrills her. But magic always has a price.
Twenty years have passed since the Darkmage was destroyed and the war between mages ended. For Lira Astor, the single living heir to the Darkmage, escaping her name is impossible. People still fear what is long dead, and they see in her the rise of another dangerous mage with deadly ambition. Desperate to claw her way free of her grandfatherâs shadow, to make her own name amongst the world of mages, Lira is willing to do whatever it takes. Even if that means joining the secretive rebel group looking to restore his vision.
Survival is a lesson Lira learned early and often, yet when she is abducted and held prisoner in a deadly game of cat and mouse, she finds herself facing a nemesis she may be no match for. Forced to band together with unlikely allies who challenge everything she believes about what it means to be a mage, she will have to rely on every bit of ruthlessness she possesses.
Because the war may only just be beginningâŚ
âŚand Lira Astor intends to come out on top.
Bitter, aching cold.
It was her first clear memory, before hunger or affection or fear. The type of cold that digs deep into your bones and wonât let go.
It came in the draughts that whispered through every crack in the walls of the hut she and her mother lived in. It crept through the floor under her bare feet, the straw mattress of her bed, the surface of everything she touched. And with cold came the stark white of the snow carpeting the world outside her home.
Hunger came next, a constant dull ache in the pit of her stomach, and after that⌠fear. The fear in her motherâs eyes when she looked at her sometimes. Or drawn tight in her features when she left the hut early each morning to work or hunt.
She didnât remember much before the night her mother died. Those memories held a fuzzy, dreamlike quality. Impressions mostly. Her motherâs laugh. The way her embrace could dispel the aching cold, if only for a brief moment. A snatch of brown hair, light, coppery, like the leaves floating to the ground before the merciless winter came.
But she remembered that day like it had been yesterday. The glow of the sunset lighting the unbroken white outside the hut aflame in orange. The way sheâd shivered as any warmth the day had held faded with it. She remembered watching as the sun finally slid below the horizon and the shadows crept further and further across the floor toward her⌠remembered staring out that window. Waiting. For her mother to return with the night as she always did.
But she hadnât come, no matter how long she waited.
Sheâd almost frozen to death in the early hours before dawn, too young to know how to start a fire or make dinner, too young to know what to do about the fact her mother hadnât come home like she was supposed to.
The night had been unending.
Fear of the dark swamped her. The walls of the tiny hut closed in until she felt she couldnât breathe. Every sound outside caused her to start in fright, the pressure in her chest at the dark and the small space growing tighter and tighter until it hurt. Until she was taking quick, panting breaths, numb fingers clenched painfully tight in the threadbare fabric of the blanket sheâd wrapped around herself.
Sheâd huddled on her straw bed and shivered from cold and terror until morning light had crept under the door and through the windows, slowly dispelling the darkness. By then her hands and feet were numb and she was so stiff she could barely move.
With the day came the slowing of her breath, an easing in her chest. Fear had not defeated her. She had survived.
She had decided then and there that she would bury that fear and dread so far away that she would never have to re-live it. Never have to remember the horror of that night, how sheâd whimpered and trembled and begged for it all to be over. Whatever it took. Even if she was already afraid of what would happen when the sun set once again and darkness returned.
So bit by bit she packed it away, let the daylight banish the shadows, and then she forced herself to her feet. Eventually her stiff limbs cooperated, and she tidied the hut as she knew her mother would want her to, even though they barely had any possessions. Then she curled up on her straw bed and continued waiting. Her mother would come eventually.
Not long after sunrise a visitor came. Stomping feet sounded through the snow outside and then an impatient knock came at the door, hard enough to make it rattle on its hinges. It startled her from the daze of hunger and exhaustion sheâd fallen into, and her heart quickened in fear when a second knock thudded on the wood.
She forced herself off the bed, stumbling and falling when cold-stiffened limbs refused to work properly. Gritting her teeth, sheâd heaved herself off the floor and gone to answer the knock.
A big, bearded, man stood there, towering over her. Sheâd seen him before at the village market. The grim look on his weathered face marked itself in her memory for always⌠but it wasnât the news he brought that made her remember it with such clarity. It was the flash of fear in his eyes when she opened the door and he saw her standing there.
âYou survived the night,â heâd muttered, mostly to himself. If anything, the fear on his face grew starker at the fact of her survival. âI didnât expect that, it was a cold one.â
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
âYour mother is dead. Someone will be here soon to collect you and take you away. Youâre not wanted here.â
Before she could process that, could think to ask any questions, heâd turned and stomped away. Sheâd stared after him for a long time. Cold wind swept around her shivering body, toyed with the strands of her lank hair. Death was a concept she vaguely understood, enough to know her mother wasnât coming back.
Where would they take her?
Eventually closing the door, sheâd turned and looked at the inside of their hut. At the unlit fire and the old chest holding her and her motherâs belongings. Hunger ached in her stomach, but that wasnât a new sensation, and she pushed it aside.
If her mother was dead, where would she get food? She had no way of paying for it. She couldnât even light the fire to make herself warm. Not that there was much kindling left. Would they take her somewhere where there was food? The girl made herself walk over to the chest and open it up. She owned only one change of clothes, as tattered and worn as the ones she had on, but she pulled them out anyway. That was what Mother wanted her to do each day. Dress in clean clothes.
Sheâd only just finished putting her old clothing in the pail near the fire to be washed when a second banging came at the door. A different villager was outside this time. He hid his fear better, but it was still there in the way he took an unconscious step back when she opened the door.
âWhat happened to my mother?â She hadnât quite felt yet that her mother wasnât ever returning, even though she knew it must be true.
âSheâs gone. Best not to dwell on it, girl,â he said, his voice blunt but not unkind. âYouâll be better off away from here.â
âWhy?â
âYour kind isnât wanted here,â he said gruffly. âWe tolerated your mother because she had none of his⌠but you do and itâs best you be gone before you bring trouble down on us all. Iâm off to Dirinan to sell my carvings, and itâs been decided youâll come with me. Come along now.â
Five years old and sheâd closed the door of her home behind her for the final time, small feet trudging through the thick snow towards the manâs cart. It was already loaded with crates, so she climbed up and perched between two of them, curling her body in an attempt to stay warm.
The journey had taken all day and night. He hadnât spoken a word to her the entire day, apart from when he tossed her a hunk of bread and a blanket once night fell.
Theyâd entered Dirinan not long after dawn. Freezing, hungry, and exhausted, she hadnât taken in much of the port city, her gaze unseeing as the cart moved through quiet cobblestoned streets. Her mother was gone. That realisation had slowly sunk in during the long night. A shudder racked her frame.
Her mother was gone, and sheâd never see her again. Nobody wanted her now. Tears iced on her cheek, but she barely noticed. The pain inside was much worse than the discomfort on the outside.
The man didnât say anything when heâd stopped the cart in front of a grey stone building either. Sheâd waited, shivering, while he went inside. When he came back out, heâd told her to get out of his cart, go inside, and never come back to the village.
Not knowing what else to do, sheâd climbed down from the cart. He clicked his tongue and the cart took off. He didnât look back. Shoulders hunched against the icy air, she turned and went inside the building.
The woman waiting beyond the front doors told her she was at an orphanage, a home for motherless children, and that she would be living there until she was old enough to leave.
âWhatâs your name, girl?â
âLira.â
âYou have a last name?â
Lira had shrugged, unsure what that was. âMama called me Lira.â
The woman masked her fear better than the villagers, but the man had clearly told the woman who she was, because the girl could see wariness in the stiffness of her shoulders and the way she held herself back, as if the girl carried some kind of disease. It was a familiar sight.
Five years old and already they were afraid of Shakarâs granddaughter.
Imagine being the heir to the most hated and feared mage ever known. You'd have to grow up with everyone knowing your name and what your ancestor did. Everyone hates and fears the name of Lira Astor's grandfather and though she has never met the man, people have judged Lira based on her lineage alone. She grows up on the streets learning to survive with her wits and not much else.
When she is finally accepted to mage school life gets a bit more comfortable, although Lira still has difficulty trusting anyone considering her painful past. She's learned to place surviving above all else. This will come in handy when she and several other students are mysteriously abducted and face life-threatening challenges. To top all of it off, she's agreed to do a job for the organization that wants to restore her grandfather's vision. She's going to have to rely on all her instincts to survive and perhaps do the one thing she swore never to do again in her life--rely on others to help her.
Heir to the Darkmage takes on an interesting premise. What if a student at a magic school was a relative of the worst kind of mage there was? Lira can't change who she is or who she is related to but that doesn't stop most people from judging her without even knowing anything about her.
The book moves back and forth in time to the days when Lira is left alone on the streets to fend for herself and to the dangerous situation she currently finds herself in. Overall, the book works very well and is quite entertaining. It was occasionally distracting to hop back in time or go forward just at an exciting moment but it's still engaging enough that it is very much worth reading.
Fans of fantasy books with mysteries and action at their core will love this book. There are strange creatures, powerful mages, and life on the mean streets. This was my first read of a Lisa Cassidy book but now that I have read about Lira I'm much more likely to check out some of her previous books. If you're a fan of hers already, I think you will enjoy this one. Even if you are not, I think this is a good entry point as it doesn't leave the reader feeling like they need to read any previous books to fully enjoy this one.